Monthly Archives: June 2015

E-Newsletter No. 18
June 2015
If not us, who?________If not now, when?

Here is an interesting question about the Entitlement State – – What about medical care? Doesn’t the Declaration of Independence mention an inalienable right to life (etc)? So, doesn’t that mean the government is required to provide health care? (The original answer to that question was “No”).

Unfortunately, over the intervening years since our country’s founding, a number of “progressive” presidents (such as Woodrow Wilson, FDR and LBJ) felt that the government needed to have (additional) powers to do whatever the progressives thought the “national interest” required.

The reason the Entitlement State is an un-American concept is that it was based on the belief that regular US citizens were incapable of managing their own personal lives. Therefore, it was up to the government to establish a program that would provide a retirement benefit for every citizen (not just for those elderly retirees who might otherwise need to rely on their family members, or turn to a charitable/civic organization for assistance).

But isn’t healthcare different? The answer is still “No”. Otherwise, that line of thinking would lead you to a conclusion that the federal government is also obligated to provide you with food and housing, too. Having said that… Our Editorial Board does believe that it is OK for the government to have a regulatory oversight (protection) role in regards to healthcare issues. One of the primary reasons Medicare came into existence in the 1960s is that insurance companies were reluctant to provide a health insurance policy to an elderly person with significant medical issues. However, the unfortunate consequence was a massive expansion of the federal bureaucracy to manage the country’s healthcare system.

The Entitlement State is one of the major drivers of the country’s annual deficit and cumulative debt. The country’s entitlement programs need to be reformed / transformed, because there are now fewer than three workers for each retiree. The annual deficit amounts for Medicare and Social Security are projected to continually increase each year, and the projected deficits for Medicare are even larger than the amounts for Social Security.

Our Editorial Board would like to see the restoration of commonsense regulation of the country’s healthcare system, by devolving it back to the states. The country’s private healthcare industry (which is a “regulated industry” at the state level) should continue to be the primary healthcare delivery system for the vast majority of the country’s citizens. In regards to the elderly (and “welfare-eligible” citizens) we feel that it is OK for the federal government to establish appropriate, minimum national standards (i.e., the rules and regulations). In addition, it is OK for the federal government to collect “Medical Care” payroll taxes, but those funds should immediately be refunded directly back to the applicable state for its healthcare program. It should be up to the US House of Representatives and US Senate to determine each year how much additional financial assistance the federal government should provide to each state to support each state’s healthcare program. The role of the federal government should be changed from a “management” (bureaucracy) role, to an “advisory / regulatory oversight” role.